How to weave in the “planet” perspective?
Hey, eco-enthusiasts! This is a rapid rundown of the Livework Service Blueprint Planet Lane. For those craving a deeper dive into the thinking underpinning it, dive into the long-read version!
In our quest to make service design more ecological, we turned our spotlight on one of our favourite tools: the service blueprint.
In the last couple of years, there’s been a surge in companies jumping on the sustainability bandwagon. From ESG reports to Net Zero targets, everyone is pledging to do their part in a shared effort to take better care of our planet. But despite the talk, emissions keep soaring, and the disconnect between sustainability pledges and actual action remains glaring. As it turns out, just setting a target is not enough; you have to actually understand how to get from where you are now to your future ambition.
We saw an opportunity for the service blueprint to help close the gap between corporate climate ambitions and an operation that actually delivers on these. The blueprint positions services as the connective tissue between the whole offer to the customer and what is needed to deliver it operationally. Like no other, a service designer knows how to align operational activities, business objectives and managerial practices to a desired new future. But, if we want to use it to deliver on sustainable ambitions, the current set up is missing a piece. It currently doesn’t facilitate connecting the dots between the realms of customer, operation or business, with the realm off planetary impact.
After some trial and error (check out the full story in our long-read version of this article), we found a structure that worked for us: an additional swim lane in the service blueprint dedicated solely to the planet. Say hello to the Planet Lane, an addition to the traditional blueprint including three key components: “Moments of Planet Impact”, “Planet Knowledge Gaps”, and “Planet Opportunities”.
Let’s delve deeper into each element to understand how the Planet Lane empowers service designers to help operationalise sustainable ambitions:
- Moments of Planet Impact
The “Moments of Planet Impact” pinpoint the steps in the customer journey that hold the greatest potential for contributing to corporate sustainability goals within the service in question. For instance, consider a restaurant chain that wants to reduce food waste. One of the “Moments of Planet Impact” could then be the moment that the customer orders, as over-ordering has a direct impact on food waste.
- Planet Knowledge Gaps
As we don’t always know why customer make choices, the planet lane also identifies our knowledge gaps. In the end, like in any service design project, designing for change hinges on robust insights. The “Planet Knowledge gaps” highlights areas where our understanding of consumer behaviour and underlaying triggers or motivations falls short. Take for example a fashion/retail company in pursuit of increasing the longevity of their garment. They would need to understand why some people take better care of their products than others, as well as the underlying motivations, abilities and triggers/barriers to do so.
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Planet Opportunities
Last but not least, the Planet Lane identifies actionable opportunities to integrate sustainability into service design — the “Planet Opportunities”. Take, for instance, a consumer whitegoods brand that wants to help its customers save energy. Right at the start of their buying journey, they would like to help their potential customers understand the long-term financial benefits of purchasing a more sustainable (and more expensive) appliance.
The placement of these “Planet Opportunities” oftentimes overlaps with the “Moments of Planetary Impact” but that is not a given. There are plenty of examples where to prevent impact, something had to change earlier on in the journey.
The Planet Lane: A Pragmatic Tool To Create Tangible Change
By incorporating this simple and straightforward Planet Lane into our service blueprints, we nudge ourselves to think about sustainable ambitions as well as customer desire and business goals. The only thing it really requires is a healthy dose of curiosity. The teams we tried it with found it seamlessly integrated into their existing workflows and felt encouraged to contact the teams in their organisation responsible for actioning sustainable strategies.
If you want to try out the planet lane together and figure out how it works for your services, get in touch! Let’s redesign the future to be just and regenerative — one blueprint at a time.
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As Lead Sustainability for Livework, Anna coordinates across clients and projects to ensure our designers structurally update their mental models, approach and toolset to integrate the ecological perspective.
As a pragmatic environmentalist, she draws from over 6 years of experience in complex service/system innovation projects and transformation programs at companies like JPMorgan and Adidas. She leverages this background to work as a catalyst 0f change for the better.